Patrick refused to think about who the father might be.
If he did, he might throw up in his rental, and he didn’t want to deal with the cleaning fee for that.
“All right.” Nadine sighed. “We’ll do it your way.”
“Secrets and lies it is,” Patrick said, wishing he were joking.
12
Jono looked up from the electric kettle as Patrick came out of the bathroom Friday morning dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, scrubbing a hand through his damp hair.
“No suit today?” Jono asked.
Patrick scowled. “One of us needs to pick up Spencer from the airport. Nadine already has a working relationship with the WSA. She’s better suited at taking lead in that area than I am at the moment.”
“So you’re skiving off whilst she does all the work?”
Patrick smacked Jono on the ass as he went to grab his combat boots. “No. We’re going to drive around and see who comes out of the woodwork.”
The kettle clicked off. Jono picked it up to pour hot water into his mug. “That’s a waste of money on the congestion charge.”
“We’re billing the government.”
“You’re hunting for the auction location, is what you’re doing. Lucien said the spell on the invitation would show the address this weekend. What do you hope to find out there today?”
Patrick sat on the chair and shoved his feet into his combat boots. “I told you last night Cressida fucked Rossiter. If Cressida’s demon is also in contact with the Dominion Sect, then they’ll know we’re in London.”
“You want to play bait.”
“No.” At Jono’s disbelieving stare, Patrick rolled his eyes. “Yes. Nadine called while you were in the shower. The WSA thinks they got a hit on Rossiter on the CCTV in Tottenham. I want to case the area, see if I can’t track him with my magic.”
Jono carefully set his mug down on the glass table. “Tottenham.”
Patrick’s gaze softened a little. He finished lacing up his boots before getting to his feet and closing the distance between them. Jono tilted his head down to look him in the eye.
“I can take Sage with me, if you want,” Patrick said quietly. “You don’t have to come.”
“I’m not letting either of you go there without me. You both stand out too much.”
“So will you. Just because we’re in London doesn’t mean you need to go everywhere with us. I told her if you didn’t want to come you could take Wade to do some more touristy shit. He was saying something about the Victoria and Albert Museum last night.”
“They’ve a jewelry gallery,” Jono said absently, staring past Patrick. “He probably wants to nick some.”
Cool hands framed his face, Patrick’s thumbs bracketing his mouth. Jono blinked, refocusing on him. This close and Jono could see the freckles scattered over Patrick’s nose and cheeks, darker lately from summer sunlight and long hours working cases in the field.
“I don’t want you to go back there if the memories are going to hurt,” Patrick said.
“You getting hurt would be worse.”
“Jono.”
“I’m going, Pat.”
He didn’t say home, because it wasn’t, not anymore. Tottenham and the council estate he’d grown up on before getting kicked out after being infected with the werevirus hadn’t been home for years. His family hadn’t wanted him, neither had his old mates, and Jono had done what he’d had to so he could survive.
It had meant shady jobs, under-the-table payments in cash, skirting the edges of local gangs, all with a target on his back. He’d had no pack, no territory to call his own, no support, and dealt with discrimination every day because of the telltale color of his eyes. What relationships he’d made were thin at best after his family disowned him. He hadn’t seen a quid of the settlement amount from the court suit against the hospital that had given him the bad blood transfusion. His family had kept it all, and he’d been left out in the cold.
You couldn’t change the past, but you could change your family, and he’d done that.
He wouldn’t let anyone make him feel less because of it.
Jono shook his head. “Sage can keep an eye on Wade today. You and I will drive up to Tottenham, though it’s in the complete opposite direction as Heathrow. Traffic is going to be bloody terrible.”
“If we’re late, Spencer can take the Tube in. We can pick him up from a station or something.”
“That’s a bit rude if you already told him we’d pick him up from Heathrow.”
Patrick patted Jono’s cheek with one hand before pulling away. “He and Fatima can fend for themselves. Trust me on that.”
Jono had never met PIA Special Agent Spencer Bailey, but Patrick had been explicitly clear they’d never dated. Jono figured Patrick was making a point, but rather than get jealous, Jono had only shrugged and proceeded to distract Patrick in bed. All he knew was that Spencer used to be in the Mage Corps, and now he wasn’t, and that the joint task force was bringing him over on an unofficial basis.
Jono had a feeling the unofficial bit would make things messy in the end, but diplomatic niceties weren’t his forte. He left those to Sage.
“Let’s get the car and be off. I’ll text Sage she’s on her own with Wade today,” Jono said.
“All right.”
Patrick wandered off to finish getting ready, and Jono tried to mentally steady his nerves. He didn’t even know if his family lived in the council estate anymore. Last he’d heard years ago, they’d been talking about buying a home and moving out. Jono didn’t know if they had, and he’d never bothered to find out.
They’d washed their hands of him, and he’d done the same.
Definitely going to need a pint after today.
Somehow, he didn’t think Patrick would mind keeping him company if he did.
Patrick didn’t take long, and before Jono knew it, he was seated behind the steering wheel of their rental, driving north, following a route he’d never thought he’d ever take again. Time was he’d ride the Tube, but the drive wasn’t unfamiliar. He used to borrow Tom’s car back in the day, had actually learned to drive in it, but that hadn’t been his regular mode of transportation.
“How will you even know if Rossiter is around?” Jono asked.
Patrick didn’t lift his head away from where he had it leaned against the window. “Same way I know when demons are around. My magic will tell me.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like I need to gargle with alcohol to get the taste of hell out of my mouth. Why?”
“Just curious.”
If Patrick was shielded, Jono couldn’t tell when Patrick was using his magic unless he used the soulbond to tap a ley line. The connection between them wasn’t always open, but it was tighter than it had been last summer. Part of it was due to the torn open hole in Patrick’s soul and the deeply buried connection he had with Hannah. The soulbond had spread deeper into their souls to block that connection since Chicago, but Patrick hadn’t figured out how to sever his tie to Hannah yet.
Some days, Jono wasn’t sure Patrick even wanted to.
Patrick had a lot of guilt where his sister was concerned. Jono hadn’t raised the issue about the connection tying the twins together and what to do about it because that was a minefield he had no map for.
“So we’re just burning petrol whilst you”—Jono lifted a hand off the steering wheel and wiggled his fingers—“go abracadabra?”
Patrick smacked Jono in the shoulder, but he was laughing as he did so. “Fuck you, that’s not what I’m doing.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“You’re lucky you’re cute.” Patrick’s mobile beeped with an incoming message. He lifted his hips to pull it from his pocket and check it. “Hey, is there a grocery store or butcher shop somewhere we can get a bone?”
Jono glanced at him, not sure what to make of that question. “A bone?”
“Yeah. Spencer reminded me I owe Fatima a bone.”
“Isn’t he on the plane? Shouldn’t he be sleeping?”
Patrick shrugged, typing away at the screen. “Who knows with him, but Fatima isn’t one I’d like to piss off.”
“His partner?”
“His psychopomp.”
Jono returned his attention to the road. “Ah.”
“Don’t worry, she’s harmless.” Patrick paused. “Mostly.”
“Mostly,” Jono repeated dryly.
Patrick lowered his mobile but didn’t put it back into his pocket. He reached up with his other hand to set a silence ward in the car, static buzzing Jono’s ears. “There’s something I wanted to tell you.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It’s about Spencer’s kind of magic. It’s within the family of necromancy.”
“You told me that already. I said I don’t mind.”
“He cleaves souls apart. I think he could maybe undo the soulbond if that’s something you wanted.”
Jono drew in a sharp breath, jerking his head to the side despite the traffic on the road. He stared at Patrick’s profile for a second before wrenching his gaze back around. “What the bloody fuck gave you the idea that’s something I want?”
“Because you didn’t have a choice—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Jono interrupted. “We’ve been over this. What’s done is done, and I don’t regret what ties us together.”
“I’m offering you a possible way out.”
“I don’t want it.” Jono swallowed, fingers tightening on the steering wheel. “Unless you do?”
“No,” Patrick admitted, and the utter honesty in his scent put Jono at ease. “But it’s something I had to offer you, knowing what I know about Spencer and his magic. He’ll know about the soulbond the moment he sees us.”
“Then tell him to keep his gob shut, and we’ll be fine.”
Patrick cracked a smile, but it appeared strained when Jono glanced at him. “He knows how to keep a secret.”
“Good.” Jono reached over and settled his hand on top of Patrick’s, sliding their fingers together. “I don’t know how to make it more clear, Pat. You’re all I want, soulbond or not. I love you. That’s never going to change.”
Patrick lifted their linked hands so he could kiss the back of Jono’s. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Jono could smell the tangle of emotion on him that settled into something pleased and relieved, and that was all that mattered.
“So, it’s like our Section Eight housing?” Patrick asked, squinting against the dull sunlight peeking through the clouds.
“The British government is better at housing people overall,” Jono said.
“If you say so.”
Jono looked out at the drab gray concrete building of intersecting wings that rose like a prison amidst the homes surrounding the area. Rainriver was a council estate in Tottenham that had never seen better days. The block was high-density social housing that served a needed purpose but didn’t do it well in Jono’s opinion.
The playground between them and the first wing of the complex was filled with half a dozen women in abayas and hijabs who were watching young children climbing about the slide and swing set. Music echoed in the air from quite a few flats, and he could see a group of teenagers congregating around a couple of cars down the street having a smoke.
It was exactly how he remembered, and yet, it wasn’t. The building was the same, but the people were different, and the stressful bitterness had long since disappeared. Staring at the place he’d grown up, Jono realized, for maybe the first time in years, that his past didn’t matter anymore. This was where he’d come from, but it was the present with his pack that needed his attention.
“Did you want to take a look inside the grounds for old times’ sake?” Patrick asked.
Jono shook his head. “Don’t need to. There’s nothing here for me.”
Patrick nodded, not bothering with platitudes others might’ve given voice to. “We’re still within the vicinity where the WSA caught Rossiter on CCTV. Let’s take a walk, see if we can’t find anything.”
“The car would be quicker.”
“A car isn’t as maneuverable as you think it is in a chase unless it comes with a mounted machine gun. In which case, then it’s a tank, and while I wouldn’t mind that on occasion, it’s not street legal.”
“You just want a gun.”
Patrick rolled his eyes. “Magic isn’t the answer to everything.”
“I’ve listened to you whinge about that enough already. No need to start again.”
Patrick laughed but didn’t offer up more complaints. They’d parked some streets over and done a bit of wandering before angling back toward Rainriver. Patrick had been following whatever traces of magic Jono couldn’t scent, and he didn’t seem in a hurry to leave.
They started walking, heading down the street at an easy pace. Jono could feel eyes on them, could smell the wary curiosity on the air, but he didn’t take any of it as a threat. They weren’t local, didn’t really look like they belonged, and Patrick definitely didn’t sound English. Jono dialed up his hearing, keeping an ear out around them.
“Think Rossiter and his ilk will be about?” Jono asked.
“Who the fuck knows. I’m just checking for black magic.”
Jono couldn’t smell him anymore. Patrick had locked down his magic before leaving the car, and he smelled human to Jono’s nose. He looked it, too; they both did—coming across as out-of-place, easy marks. Maybe that was why the teenagers they passed started following them.
“Oi!” one of them yelled from close behind. “Bit lost, are you?”
Patrick sighed loudly. “What’s the law here on punching idiots?”
“Could still get arrested,” Jono said mildly as they both stopped at a corner and turned around to face the group of five teenagers.
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Oh, one of them’s a Yank. Did you wander too far from your tour group and get lost? Could help you on your way, but it’ll cost you,” a tall youth jeered.
The five drew closer, one on a bicycle, going so far as to ride directly at them, fully expecting them to move. Except neither Jono nor Patrick jumped aside, and the youth’s smirk was wiped clean off his face when Jono grabbed the handlebars. He halted the bicycle’s forward momentum with preternatural strength, grabbing it with one hand while using the other to snatch the teen out of midair as he went flying forward from unchecked momentum.
Jono let go of the bicycle and swung the teen around, holding him off the ground by the collar of his polo shirt. Fabric tore, but Jono didn’t let go. The kid gripped Jono’s hand with both of his, trying to pry himself free, eyes gone wide in surprise.
“What the fuck, mate! That was my bike!” the teen yelled.
He stank of anger, bravado, and fear, but the fear overrode everything else when Jono removed his sunglasses.
“Oh shit, oh fuck, didn’t mean nothing by it, bruv,” the teen got out, eyes wide in his suddenly pale face, feet kicking but getting nowhere close to Jono.
“Seems like you did,” Jono said, shooting an annoyed glance at the other four, who looked like they were going to come to their mate’s rescue, then thought better of it once they saw Jono’s eyes. “I don’t see anyone else trying to run me and my mate down.”
“I swear, we wouldn’t have done it if we knew what you were!”
The teen’s voice had gone up an octave, and his group of mates were jostling each other as they backed up. Their attempts at trying to run away weren’t subtle.
“But if we were human, you’d see us as fair game, is that it?” Patrick asked.
“Please let me go,” the teenager begged, eyes wide and stinking up the whole area with his fear. “Don’t—don’t bring the god pack around here.”
Jono opened his mouth to respond when Patrick swore and moved past him, a mageglobe sparking into existence at shoulder height.
“Jono,” Patrick snapped.<
br />
He looked in the direction Patrick was headed, down the cross street that cut deeper into Rainriver and became a car park. The tiered wing of the council estate they were near came with patios, and a group of creatures were flinging themselves down the building one level at a time with a swiftness Jono knew meant trouble.
They looked wrong, stretched out limbs and torsos giving the human bodies an almost animalistic appearance. As the creatures threw themselves off the building and drew closer, Jono realized their heads were larger than their bodies. The sluggish breeze was blowing in the opposite direction, which was why Jono hadn’t smelled them.
He unclenched his fingers from the teenager’s shirt. The teen stumbled when his feet hit the ground, falling on his bum. Jono paid him only enough attention to growl, “Get the fuck inside.”
The teenagers scattered. Patrick was already racing toward the threat. Jono followed, closing the distance between them in half a second.
“What are they?”
“Drekavac,” Patrick said, dagger already in hand.
“In English, mate.”
Patrick’s mageglobe multiplied, and Jono knew that wasn’t a good sign. “A type of undead.”
Jono flexed his hands, fingertips splitting around the beginnings of claws. “Zombies?”
“Close enough.”
“Think that necromancer summoned them?”
“Someone did.” Patrick shot him a look, green eyes reflecting the pale blue light of his mageglobes. “Don’t shift.”
Jono gestured angrily at the small horde of demonic-looking zombies running toward them. “You want me to stay human whilst we face off against those bloody things? Not on your fucking life.”
“For once, could you just listen?” Patrick shot back before he snagged one of his mageglobes and threw it at the oncoming drekavacs.
Raw magic exploded in the middle of the group, but the fuckers were fast, and all but one escaped the blast radius. Black asphalt rose into the air before coming down on the surrounding parked vehicles, crashing through numerous windows and denting metal.
On the Wings of War (Soulbound Book 5) Page 15